Thursday, March 31, 2016

Smart Fuses Make Smart Artillery Affordable

WASHINGTON — The US Army has awarded Orbital ATK with a $120 million contract modification to make kits that turn conventional 155mm artillery into a near-precision shell.

The kits are meant to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage, allowing the use of artillery where it would have otherwise been ill-advised — in a congested area or near friendly forces.The guidance fuzes would be fielded to the Army, the Marine Corps, Australia and Canada. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in early 2016, following low-rate initial production, which began in January.

In 2006, ATK — which has since merged with Orbital — was awarded one of two technology demonstration contracts from the US Army to develop the XM1156 precision guidance kit (PGK) for the 155mm howitzer artillery system. In 2013, it won a $58 million contract, with a base requirement and two options for a year of full-rate production; the recent award was option one.

120 million is a nice chunk, but it is not much in the overall DOD budget. These kits are well worth having. The article claims that the fuses only cost about 10K each. That would be 100 fuses per million dollars, or 12,000 fuses total. I expect the price to drop with mass production. This is already a significant price drop from the Excaliber round, which I also spent an extensive number of hours supporting. The Excaliber round current cost of production is about 68K or about seven times as expensive as the PGK.

The range for both of the rounds is about 25-30 km. I can envision a Tom Clancy type novel, consisting of the consequences of jihadis obtaining a couple of M777 howitzers and 50 of the PGK fuses with the shells to go with them, and how they would be deployed in the U.S.A.

Here is a video of the Precision Guidance Kit (PGK) to make smart shells out of “dumb” standard rounds.

It is a great feeling to see that
some of the many, many hours I put in on RDT&E is paying off.

Think of how few rounds you need, in comparison with the massive artillery
barrages in WWII, when you have this sort of accuracy at your
fingertips.

“During this demonstration, PGK delivered 90 percent of rounds fired
within five meters accuracy of the target positioned 27 kilometers from
the gun position.”

It probably costs 10K just to get a plane off the ground, not to include the risk to pilot and the plane.

A simple “dumb” round costs about $500. So you can have 21 “dumb”
rounds for 1 PGK. But that does not consider the costs of shipping those
rounds, transporting them in a combat situation, and storing and
guarding them.
Nor are you assured that 21 “dumb” rounds will achieve what you are
likely to get with 1 PGK. You have to fire to see where the dumb rounds
hit, then adjust them into the target, which gives the target time to
react, disperse, get under cover, start counter battery fire...

The over all cost and effectiveness figures are all on the side of the PGK.

There are some times when you need massed fire. You do not need precision munitions for that. But have enough precision munitions, and there is a good chance you will not have to use mass fires, nearly as much.

This is what the rest of the world (inner city homie sights spray and pray included) has yet to figure out about serious, Liberty loving and Freedom defending Americans.

We aim. We forever strive to improve our aim. We only want to eliminate the target we aim at and seek to dispense with it absent unneeded and unwarranted damage. 1991 was the first time the world got to see it on a large scale and they still have yet to pick their jaws up off the floor.

I suspect that jaw still being on the floor has something to do with stories like this one. We just keep right on improving our aim.....

Background

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” -- Thomas Jefferson

Syndicated columnist Charley Reese (1937-2013): "Gun control by definition affects only honest people. When a politician tells you he wants to forbid you from owning a firearm or force you to get a license, he is telling you he doesn’t trust you. That’s an insult. ... Gun control is not about guns or crime. It is about an elite that fears and despises the common people."

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles -- Jeff Cooper (1920-2006)

Note for non-American readers: Crime reports from America which describe an offender just as a "teen" or "teenager" almost invariably mean a BLACK teenager.

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

How much do you know about Trayvon Martin? Did you recognize him in the picture above? If not you may need to know more about him. It's all here (Backups here and here)

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” -- Robert A. Heinlein